Finally going LED

[Ace25]

That depends on the color of the laser. Now if I just had mini-sharks to attach these lasers to I would be set.

It took me a few times to see what the heck the rain effect was.. I was looking right past it the first few times.. but after seeing it in the beginning of the video it is the LED light hitting/reflecting off the ripples of the surface movement and the camera reacting to it.

I actually spent about 10 seconds thinking about how to add a real rain effect on my 75G using a small pump and drippers from the top of the canopy, but quickly realized that was a bad idea.. saltwater will clog the drippers, plus a lot of spray from the drops, and zero benefit to the tank by doing that so I quickly scrapped that idea. The "thunderstorm" effect is pointless also, I admit it... but I think it will look cool, although I bet I will use it once or twice and never again because I am betting the fish will get really freaked out by it.

 

[Ace25]

Just wanted to post some helpful info about power usage. I know a lot of people want to know this.

1 Mean Well ELN-60-48D driver + 12 LEDs @ 100% power = 58w

On my 75G w/ 4 drivers and 48 LEDs at the current setting I am using 50w of power total.

 

[Sploke]

On my 75G w/ 4 drivers and 48 LEDs at the current setting I am using 50w of power total.

And, thus far anyway, supporting SPS growth. *like*

 

[Ace25]

Ok, so it seems there is quite a difference in power usage between the XR-E Royal Blues and the XP-G Cool whites.. the whites take more power when run at 100% up on the dimmer, 1amp. The whites actually take 70w of power for 12 LEDs. Kind of shocking to me.. almost double the power they should be taking. The driver gets VERY hot when run at 100% so you can see where a lot of the power is wasted by getting turned into heat.

[yt]wzhGsfSiW8Q[/yt]

 

[leocom2000]

You have cool music for all your videos. Kinda creeping me out.

 

[DoctaQ]

the xp-g have lower vf than the xr-e..you could probably add a couple more xp-g to the same string..13 leds or more depending on the actual vf and current draw..i have heard that meanwells can be inefficient like you mentioned here..strange

 

[bgrant721]

To Do or Not To Do

Update: LEDs are HARD to get "right" it seems. I am still constantly playing with mine and still not having much luck. They are too powerful and killing some of my SPS corals. I took off all the optics and I like the looks of the LED light but in order to get the brightness that my eyes like I end up throwing way too much light on the corals. When I lower the light to the right PAR levels it looks really dim to my eyes. They are very deceiving.

Right now I am still leaning towards a MH light being my favorite type of light for the looks (variety of bulbs that all work well and meet our personal preferences) and ease of use, although the electricity cost and heat issues are huge negatives. They do seem to put out just the right amount of light and right intensity for our needs with so many years of research behind them.

I think the LEDs of today will work, but at present they do require quite a bit of tweaking to get them working right. So for now I am going to say LEDs are NOT for everyone.. they are good for certain types of people, people that like to play with things like LEDs (me). I know the majority of people out there just like to stick a light over the tank they know works well and call it a day and for those type of people I would say to wait a couple more years for LEDs to mature more so the spectrum and intensity will best suit the purposes of a reef tank.

I don't feel there are any LED fixtures on the market right now that I would say is the perfect LED light, most fixtures do not cover the entire spectrum leaving holes in UV, greens, and red part of the spectrum. In the last few months they have made LEDs to fill those gaps, specifically UV and Actinic spectrum (380-420nm). So it is possible to make an LED fixture that covers the entire spectrum, but for a fixture to come out that does it will take some time because the mfg will have to test different setups to get it looking good. For example, you want some reds in the spectrum, but a little goes a long way, so figuring out the number of red leds, placement, and intensity will take some time to research. Specialized controllers will be needed to give the correct voltage for each color LED to make them blend well. UV LEDs are still a huge question right now as well.. there are 2 sides to that argument and I have no idea what the answer is to the question "Is a little UV beneficial for reef tanks, and if so, how much?". Without knowing the answer to that question Mfg will not be putting those LEDs in their fixtures because the power and space could be used for lighting we see with our eyes, which will make the fixture look better.

Ace25,

Awesome postings on the subject of LED's. So with the above stated, I will propose the following question. Based on your LED experiences, would you recommend replacing the following setup with LED's or would you recommend that I stay the same?

180 G Reef Tank
4 72" VHOs
1 400W MH placed in the center of the tank

Regards,

Brian

 

[Ace25]

If your happy with your current lighting and it is working well for you my current recommendation would be to keep it as is.. unless your REALLY want to get into LEDs, even then I would suggest starting small, make a sump light out of LEDs to get some experience before you tackle something as big as a 180G tank. That is still A LOT of $ for an LED light for that size tank, but prices are dropping almost daily. I would hold off until 2012 at the earliest to see what new LEDs are out by then. They seem to come out with a new "latest and greatest LED" about once a month now... so progression that started as a small snowball 6 years ago with the Solaris LED light has turned into an avalanche of new innovation just in the last 12 months. I think most people if they jumped on the LED bandwagon today would probably kick themselves in 12 months... unless you're like me and don't mind swapping out 1/4 of your LEDs every few months just to try out the latest and greatest.

 

[masterkaw]

Ace, where can I get the cheaper LEDs made in china? I want to try LEDs but not the more expensive ones like Cree.

 

[Ace25]

IMO I would not go with the China LEDs any more.. too many of them fail quickly and the headaches trying to deal with them to get the correct items is over the top frustrating. You have to email them to place an order for what you really want since the website doesn't help much.. and after ordering 25% more than you need in order to have backups when others fail, plus ship time, and cost... it seems cheaper to me to just buy Cree's from www.ledgroupbuy.com

This is the China Site though so you can look at it, Prolight is the china knockoffs:
http://besthongkong.com/index.php?cPath=19_23&osCsid=b3b3ed04b131018e49e56ce4a6214ac6

Now compare.. the Blue from China but only runs at 700mA = $4.72ea (royals sold seperate but same price, but you must email and request Royal Blue) vs $3.19 for true Cree XP-E Royal blues that can run at 1500mA. Seems like a no brainer to me... when I ordered my first order from Rapid LED they were about $7.25ea .. just since December you can see the prices have dropped by about 1/2.